Though many, many photos taken on were shared using Instagram, the sheer scale of the demonstration was not easy to comprehend on the ground.

However, Instagrammer Phil M was inside a nearby highrise building, and was able to snap some images showing the crowds. One of his photos, captioned “That’s a lot of people,” showed some of the masses gathering ahead of the march’s commencement.

The photo received 113 likes on Instagram, though it saw more attention on Twitter and Facebook. It was tweeted more than 1,800 times and had almost 5,000 Facebook likes by midday Wednesday.

The river of red coursed through Montreal, and it was thanks to Instagram that we saw it more as a massive delta than a stream.